"I like him," said Lois slowly; "but he belongs to a different world from ours. The worlds can't come together; so it is best not to like him too much."
"How do you mean, a different world?"
"O, he's different, Madge! All his thoughts and ways and associations are unlike ours—a great way off from ours; and must be. It is best as I said. I guess it is best not to like anybody too much."
With which oracular and superhumanly wise utterance Lois closed her eyes softly again. Madge, provoked, was about to carry on the discussion, when, noticing how pale the cheek was which lay against the crimson chair cushion, and how very delicate the lines of the face, she thought better of it and was silent. A while later, however, when she had brought Lois a cup of gruel and biscuit, she broke out on a new theme.
"What a thing it is, that some people should have so much silver, and other people so little!"
"What silver are you thinking of?"
"Why, Mrs. Wishart's, to be sure. Who's else? I never saw anything like it, out of Aladdin's cave. Great urns, and salvers, and cream-jugs, and sugar-bowls, and cake-baskets, and pitchers, and salt-cellars. The salt-cellars were lined with something yellow, or washed, to hinder the staining, I suppose."
"Gold," said Lois.
"Gold?"
"Yes. Plated with gold."